by Christa Wick
"And if I don't?"
He shrugged and released a long sigh. "Then I guess only one life here matters."
Taron grabbed my elbow. "Walk with me."
"Not too far," Marcus said before I had taken my first step. "She's mine now."
"If you're going to give me some speech about how I need to sacrifice for the good of the pack, my father's or yours, I've heard all that before."
His gaze narrowed and I felt a small, but angry push of his alpha as he leaned toward me. "I'm asking you what you want. You wouldn't answer yesterday, said it was none of my business what happened after you left Night Falls."
I stared at him. Of all the shifters I had ever met, I could read him the least -- not at all really.
"I said that because you've been pulling away at warp speed," I answered after a few more seconds, the energy drifting across the clearing from Marcus more than just a little trigger happy.
Taron straightened, his body stiffening and his shoulders squaring back. "You needed space to decide whether you wanted to hold me to my claim, to figure out if your own pledge was based on a circumstantial attraction."
"You mean estrus," I laughed. I was still right in the middle of my heat, probably had another week to go, giving Marcus ample time to impregnate me if I truly were fertile.
I shook my head. "You know what, Taron, fuck you. You can push me out of your circle, but you can't push me back into my father's."
Walking away from my ex-lover, I passed my father and Marcus. I jabbed a finger in Eric's direction. "I'm not riding in a vehicle filled with his stink and fleshy bits of Theo."
I kept walking until I reached the last vehicle, the one closest to the tree line. The driver had nervously propped his cell phone next to the assault rifle he still had trained on the shifters surrounding the clearing. His rear facing camera was on so that none of his comrades could sneak up on him like my father had done to Theo.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Taron and Marcus were chest-to-chest, their voices tense and low as they felt one another out to gauge the promises being made. Taron still didn't trust Marcus, especially after what my father had just done on his command.
I looked at the men surrounding them, saw everyone's attention was now intently focused on their discussion. Even the driver was angling his phone for the best view. I stepped closer to him, let my energy build inside me. I wanted to knock him out with it, knew I might kill him instead.
I just didn't give a fuck. Out it flowed. He jerked straight for a second, his phone falling onto the gravel, and then he slumped to the ground.
I made a break for the tree line.
The shifters couldn't shoot at each other if they were all busy trying to beat me down the hill before I made it to the truck stop and caught -- or stole -- my own ride out of town.
I slapped my hand against my mouth to stop a barking laugh as I slipped past the first row of trees without hearing and alarm go up that I was escaping. Another twenty feet into the trees I picked up my pace, less worried about the sound I was making.
My mind went manic and hysterical. I was racing through the woods, in heat, just like I had a week ago. It was the same but entirely different. The sun wasn't down yet, like it had been. And I was no longer in denial about what was happening to my body.
I was alpha. I could shift. I wasn't afraid like I had been, just determined not to go back to Illinois and to not buy my freedom with a field of dead bodies.
The howls started, just as they had that night, but it wasn't less than a handful of juveniles. Marcus and my father had brought their best killers with them, their tracking skills just as highly honed as their take down talents.
But I had a lead and I was as fast as any of them now. Nothing to worry about except for the sound of a motorcycle barreling through the trees.
And the roar of its driver.
Taron -- why the fuck was he even chasing after me? To hand me over to Marcus?
A fresh wave of anger spurred me on, fueled my legs and lengthened my stride. I couldn't outrun a motorcycle but I could outmaneuver it in the dense woods. And I was going downhill, the steep incline letting me jump great distances while Taron would have to slow down to keep from spilling.
Only the dumb bear wasn't slowing down. He was gaining on me, his roar coming closer and closer. I could hear the tires chewing up pine needles, snapping and chucking twigs. I made another long jump, taking it on faith my feet would land on ground I couldn't yet see.
I caught a branch, stopping my forward fall, and dropped to the forest floor. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a flash of metal off to my right and then Taron came into view. A dozen or more feet from me, he was riding the bike down one of the dried creek beds, which was like trying to ride it down a steep slide covered with sand and gravel.
I froze in horror as his back wheel skidded sideways, the bike starting to spill and nothing but jagged rock around him and a boulder twice his size coming up fast. I acted on instinct, changing directions and running toward him. He shifted to his alpha state as he lost control of the bike, muscles expanding to pop the seams on his clothes. One foot made contact with the ground and he pushed off, leaping into the air.
Taron landed right in front of me, my arms flailing as I pulled up to avoid a collision. He gripped me by the shoulders, his long claws denting my skin but never penetrating, and then he pinned me roughly against the nearest tree, my feet off the ground and my legs dangling in the air.
Snarling, he resumed his human shape and glared up at me.
I tried to catch my breath so I could tell him to put me down, but his face told me he wouldn't yet, no matter how much I yelled or begged or kicked.
"You," he growled, easing me down the tree just enough that he could hold me in place with his torso pressing hard against me. "You continually insist on putting yourself in danger."
"You think me going back to Illinois was safe?"
"All you had to do was say you wanted to stay here. Even if you didn't want to stay with me. I would have accepted that if it meant keeping you safe."
My squirming and hard twists to get free of Taron were causing his already ripped clothes and busted seams to fall further apart. His shirt hung by one arm, my palms pushing against his bare chest. I wrapped my legs around him for leverage, thinking I could arch my back and push him far enough away that I could slip to the ground.
I didn't expect to find a hard cock resisting my push.
Fuck, he was excited now? Because I was in estrus still and struggling against him?
"Let go of me," I bit out. "Go run hot and cold with someone else, bear!"
"Hot and cold?" His brows drew into a forbidding V. "You're going to bust my balls for spending a night in the rocking chair?"
Now he had me furious. I tried to head butt him but he was too fast. With his chest keeping me pressed tight to the tree, he planted a big palm across my forehead so I couldn't repeat the attempt.
All around us, the forest echoed with the howls and other sounds of both our packs moving in. We should have been focused on that instead of bickering about our failed love affair.
"I'm busting your balls," I snarled, "because you abandoned me to the will of your pack, shoving me in that damn corner of the cavern, saying nothing -- nothing -- while assholes like Mallory talked about sending me to my father bit by bit!"
A jet of hot air blew across my face as Taron exhaled, his eyes glowing gold. "So you didn't notice that everyone I talked to before Church started either spoke for you or at least refrained from speaking out against you? Whose words do you think were coming out of Mojo's mouth? Not his, Not his wife's. Mine, Onyx!"
He knotted both hands in my hair, his face less than an inch from mine. "Every shifter in that room -- everyone but you -- expected me to speak out for you because you're my mate. I'm sorry if I was too busy trying to save you from your father's pack to hold your hand through the process."
"You were working to save your pack!" I chal
lenged.
He shook his head and I wanted so badly to believe. "All I could think about was you -- and not just making sure you were safe today, but every day after."
"You turned me over to my pack--"
"I gave you a fucking choice, one you seemed to be leaning toward even before your father showed up. A choice you ultimately took."
"What choice?"
"To leave me."
I started to break, only his body pressing against me and the rough grip of his hands in my hair keeping me upright. Tears sprang to my eyes. Both of us softened, our muscles reacting in turn.
Our foreheads touched and then our lips.
That's when we heard the other motorcycle.
"Mojo's bike --" Taron started right before a howl I knew all too well pierced the air.
"With Eric on it," I said, my heart about to burst out of my chest.
We looked higher up the creek bed to find Eric taking the same path as Taron had, a white-knuckled grip on the handlebars as he twisted them in my direction. Instead of trying to dodge a small boulder upstream, he turned the handlebars in its direction, launching him and all that steel at us.
Tossing me to the ground, Taron leapt at the bike, his body transforming to the alpha state mid-jump. He turned in the air, narrowly missing the bike as it passed, and ripped my brother off the seat. The motorcycle crashed through the underbrush and wrapped around a tree trunk.
Hitting the ground with his hand squeezing Eric's throat, Taron reached into my brother's chest. Shouts and howls permeated the forest. Everyone in the clearing had joined the hunt and was closing in.
Above all the other sounds, Eric's scream pierced the canopy of trees.
Out came Taron's hand, his fingers wrapped around a rancid heart overgrown from the steroid use. Still holding the organ as it tapped out its last few beats, he threw the body to the ground.
My father and Marcus were the first to reach us. They had their guns out, their bodies hovering on the edge of shifting. When their men arrived, we had half a dozen rifles aimed at us, the bolts drawn back to shoot.
"Stop! Lower your fucking guns!"
The order came from my father, his gaze not on the lifeless body of his son on the ground or the heart Taron still held in his hand, but on me.
"Think about what you're doing, Ruben," Marcus said, his voice slicker than oil. "The bear has to die. He killed your son, attacked your daughter --"
"Eric attacked me," I protested. "Taron was only protecting me."
Marcus came a little closer, stopping when Taron directed a deadly growl at him and dropped Eric's heart like a dirty tissue.
"You want to protect your lover, Onyx," Marcus coaxed, his tone sugary and gross. "But you're coming back with me. There's no place for you here."
I looked at Taron, saw the fear in his gaze that I was listening to the line of slimy bullshit Marcus was trying to feed me.
Fuck, we were one wrong step away from dying and I hadn't been able to tell him I loved him. There had only been that brief touching of lips before Eric appeared.
"His people don't want you here," Marcus continued.
"Then we'll find new people," I said, hooking Taron's gaze. He nodded, telling me with his eyes that he would leave the valley with me and his position as pack leader.
Shaking with anger, Marcus lifted his gun and turned it toward Taron.
"Well, then, if you won't see reason--"
The crack of a rifle jerked my spine straight. Another one sounded before I could place who the shooter or target of the first was. Two men crumpled to the ground in front of me.
Marcus.
My father.
I looked from the dead bodies to one of the shifter's in Marcus's pack. He kept the smoking rifle trained on the men he'd just shot through the head.
One of his teammates rolled Marcus over and took the dead man's handgun then double tapped him, once in the chest and again in the head.
"Just to be sure these fuckers are dead," he said, rolling my father over and repeating the action.
Shouldering his rifle, the shifter who had shot first looked at Taron then at the body cam the bear wore. "We're going to need footage of Ruben shooting Theo. Audio if you have it."
Nodding, Taron shook the shooter's hand.
I looked at the bodies on the ground around me. My father, whom I had once loved and been loved by, my brother I had tried to make love me, and Marcus. I looked up at the two shooters who had gone against all their training to betray their pack leader.
"Why?"
"Their time, their rules..."
The first man paused long enough to spit on what remained of Marcus's face.
"That's all over."
********************
Taron and I walked up the mountain separate from the shifters who had chased us down. Words were few and dedicated to warnings of obstacles overhead or underfoot. But he held my hand in his the entire time, squeezing gently whenever I hesitated on the path.
I looked in his eyes when he did that, saw the question batting around inside his head.
Things were clearly going to be different in Illinois -- did I want to go back?
Staying was a no-brainer. I should have told him that on our way up to the cabin, but my mind reeled with everything that had happened. Half my family wiped out and I didn't care. My mother a widow and I didn't care.
Should I?
He sighed as we reached the porch, his grip on my hand tightening. I looked around. There were still bikes near the tree line and the sedans hadn't left because the bodies had to be brought up. The others weren't far behind and I could hear a motorcycle approaching.
Our opportunity to speak privately was gone -- as it so often was.
Absent at the showdown by Taron's orders, Braeden pulled into the clearing and rode right up to the steps.
"You look like shit, boss," he said, his gaze sliding to our clasped hands. "But I've got a feeling you'll be just fine. You want me to supervise cleanup?"
Taron nodded at his second. "And make sure Mojo gets a ride home -- early enough Lara doesn't chew my ass off the next time I see her. Plus we'll need a crew in the morning to haul the two bikes out of the woods."
"Will do," Braeden said, eyes dancing with amusement as he glanced at our hands again.
"Wipe that fucking look off your face," Taron growled. "And get to work!"
Braeden replaced the dancing eyes with a cheek-to-cheek grin as he backed his bike up then drove it to the edge of the tree line where the first of the bodies was being carried up with a tarp wrapped around it.
Every muscle in my body tensed. Between cleaning out the bloody sedan interior and fitting four bodies in the trunks with as little trace evidence as possible, the yard was going to be filled with adrenaline-jacked shifters for a few more hours.
Releasing my hand, Taron pushed open the door. "Can you grab us a change of clothes and my keys?"
"Sure," I answered, confused. He was covered head to toe in blood. I could understand him asking me to put something down on the floor just inside the door so the blood didn't get all over the house, but he needed to shower before he changed.
Surely with Braeden's arrival, Taron could spare enough time to take care of himself.
Without commenting, I quickly gathered a full change for both of us, shoved everything in a garbage bag and returned to the porch. Taking his keys, he locked the front door then walked me around to the back of the cabin where he kept a beat up truck with a camper on it. He opened the back of the camper and pulled out a sleeping bag, a flash light and something I couldn't see rolled in brown paper.
He handed me the lightweight sleeping bag in exchange for the heavier change of clothes and then we headed into the trees behind the cabin, no trail to tell me where we were going.
"Prepared to freeze your ass off?" he asked after we'd been walking through the trees for about fifteen minutes.
"If it means I don't have to go back to the cabin while th
ere are two dozen shifters cleaning up body parts, absolutely."
His grim laugh lingered behind us as we entered a small clearing within the trees. I could tell at first glance that the clearing hadn't developed naturally. Trees had been felled with a blade, their roots pulled up. Someone had dug a fire pit and ringed it with fist sized stones. One massive stump had been left in the ground next to the fire pit as seating or perhaps as a table. A plastic tarp covered what looked like a log pile.
This was clearly something Taron had made for himself.
Placing the bag of clothes on the stump, he gestured for me to put the sleeping bag down.
"Sit," he ordered. "I'm going to get a fire going."
I obeyed, my head canted in the direction opposite of which we had entered the clearing.
"Is there a creek?" I could just barely hear the water, but the sound and scent confused me. It sounded far away or very narrow and shallow, but smelled larger and nearby.
"Not exactly," Taron answered evasively.
Finished building the fire, he toed his boots off and ripped off the tattered clothes that still hung from his body. He padded over to where I stood staring at him in open-mouthed appreciation. As if he knew just how hard my heart was pounding inside my chest, he gently lifted my top over my head.
"This isn't freeze your ass off cold," I said as he worked the buttons on my jeans. "Especially with a fire."
"It's chilly though," he smirked, his hand taking a break in undressing me to slowly tug at one of my pointy nipples.
A shiver rolled through me, bent my spine in strange directions until I had to lean into Taron for warmth and support.
He pushed my pants and underwear over my hips and down the curve of my ass. I kicked out of them and pressed my naked body against his.
"Not yet," he rasped, stepping away to pick up the flashlight and the rolled bundle.
Taking my hand, he led me to the edge of the clearing.
"Pine needles," he growled, handing me the flashlight and package.
When I had them secured, he scooped me up in his arms and continued walking. Less than fifty feet from the clearing, the ground got too rocky for the trees or underbrush to grow. Another twenty feet and I saw our destination -- a dark pool of water.
